Bird tragedy points to high-rise threat
At 7:20 a.m. last Thursday, Josh Henderson was summoned to a mass-casualty event at a 23-story building in downtown Galveston, Texas. He arrived to a scene unlike any he had ever witnessed.
Henderson, supervisor of the animal services unit in the Galveston Police Department, quickly began collecting the bodies — dozens upon dozens of migratory birds that had evidently become disoriented and slammed into the high-rise while flying north from Central and South America during a storm the night before.
Three of the birds — a Nashville warbler and two magnolia warblers — were alive. But 395 were not so lucky.
Henderson knows the number because he counted the animals by hand, sorted them into a rainbow-hued array on an autopsy table, and then packaged them for delivery to researchers. The resulting list and images will deliver a gut punch to any appreciator of birds, and probably to most anyone who likes living things.
Henderson’s body count began like this: 90 Nashville warblers 60 Blackburnian warblers 42 chestnut-sided warblers 41 ovenbirds 29 yellow warblers And on it went, all the way down to “1 cerulean warbler.”
Birds fly into buildings fairly regularly, Henderson conceded. But “the numbers are nothing I am familiar with throughout my career in animal services,” he said. “This is the largest event like this I have ever been a part of in over 10 years.”
Bird-advocacy groups said the incident, which may have been exacerbated by strong storm winds that propelled some of the animals into the structure, served as a reminder of the dangers buildings pose to birds. As many as 1 billion birds die in collisions with glass in the United States each year, according to the American Bird Conservancy. An Audubon Society representative said building crashes are a “tragic and avoidable fate for too many birds that comes second only to death by cat.”
“Turning off indoor and outdoor lights, especially during spring and fall migration seasons, is a simple and effective way to protect birds and save people money,” said Tania Homayoun, urban conservation program manager for Audubon Texas. Wildlife advocates also argue that new buildings should be constructed with “bird friendliness” in mind, which can involve using patterned, frosted or other nonreflective glass, as well as incorporating architectural features such as awnings.
The 395 bird corpses were shipped off to Texas A&M University and Louisiana State University, where scientists plan to collect their DNA, take tissue samples and preserve them for future research purposes, Henderson said.
“This dark cloud does have a silver lining, as the birds collected are a great representation of the migratory birds in our area at this time,” he said. “Hopefully this event will bring light to the subject and maybe inspire change.”